What I find interesting is how Stevens maintains that the Amendment only protects armament ownership for those actively serving in a state or federal military unit, in spite of the fact that the Amendment specifically names 'the People' as a benefactor (just like the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth) and of course, ignoring the traditional definition of the term militia. I'm personally curious about his other 5 suggested changes, but I guess we'll have to wait until the end of April to find out."

All a state would have to do is amend their constitution to proclaim that all their able bodied citizens are members of the state militia for defense of their lives, property, and the state if mustered into action. What can the feds do then?

That's... pretty interesting, actually. I wish I still had mod points to up this with. That makes it sound like interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is almost irrelevant, with such a broad definition of a militia codified into federal law. Though I notice it's also unequal - exempting women (outside of the National Guard) from classification as part of the militia also means they could potentially be excluded from gun rights under some interpretations of the 2nd Amendment.

Would they be provided with uniforms, food, pay, and medical care at least while on duty? Hey, you may have solved the problem of poverty and income inequality as well. To pay for it we could define tax dodging as treason.

It's as if he is choosing to ignore the recent killings at Ft. Hood in 2009 and 2014 because clearly no one 'serving in the militia' could ever do anything like that. It must be just those dangerous civilians out there and couldn't possibly be related to an individual's mental health or motivations.

Everyone should be armed. Assuming you're not a felon, a weapon should be in every single citizen's possession. Period. No loopholes.

Gun safety should be taught in public school, along with the inferred rights and responsibilities involved.

The reason? So that normal citizens like you and me can defend ourselves on the way to the Canadian border. Because when these idiot libs and cons start really shooting at each other... the Klondike might be our only hope.

This is how Switzerland [antiwar.com] does it. They haven't been in a foreign war in two hundred years. Even Hitler decided not to try it.

Their crime rate is very low and they actually have a civil defense plan that doesn't involve people hiding in closets and hoping somebody shows up to save them. Plus, obviously they don't need to incur all the costs of foreign wars, so they can run data centers, banking platforms, and ski resorts instead.

Yo should look a little deeper.A) Guns are seriously regulated, including need to account for every round. Good luck getting the level of regulation about firearm in the US.

B) Crime is related to education. the better educated the general populace, the less violent crime there is. This has noting to do with firearms at all. We see this in countries regardless of gun laws. Do you argue that all education including college is free? Or are you just picking some headline stat and using that without actual any u

Where in the second amendment does it say felons can't own guns? Why are certain modern weapons banned? If we accept that the second amendment allows people to own modern weaponry (and countless people, including myself, do), then why do we allow the government to violate it by keeping guns out of the hands of felons, or disallowing certain weapons?

That it's non-controversial is disgusting. That it's a worse violation of people's liberties is irrelevant to whether or not disallowing felons from owning guns is bad (Which I think it is.). I think that's just another example of how the government is violating people's basic rights, and it is one of many problems that needs to be fixed.

The whole point is for the citizens to be able to form a militia in order to defend themselves from their own government. Those words would effectively decimate the whole reason for the second amendment.

+1 to this! It makes us subjects, not citizens, since we would then have rights only when the government says so. That's not a right. This is the bill of rights, not the bill of benefits.
"When serving in a militia" is pretty much all the time since all able-bodied men and women make up the militia.

The whole point is for the citizens to be able to form a militia in order to defend themselves from their own government.

That might have been the case in 1791, when the strenght of an armed force was roughly proportional to the number of men with guns it had.

Today, if you would pit every civilian gun-owner in the US, with all their weapons, against the forces of a single aircraft carrier (one thenth of the aircraft carriers that the US government controls), the civilians would lose. Hellfire missiles beat automatic rifles every time.

If you want the second amendment to imply that the people can defeat the government by force,

I for one am just grateful that a liberal jurist has finally acknowledged that it would take a constitutional amendment to do that. Most of them seem to think that the Constitution already reads that way.

Since Stevens' change has the purpose of exactly contradicting the original intent, it seems shoddy and absurd to just change one little phrase in it. For example, the "of a free state" part becomes a joke, or at least a meaningless window dressing, once this amendment ceases to be about guaranteeing a specific freedom to the people. In other words, Stevens' modified amendment is capable of fitting in very nicely with the goals of a tyranny, and has nothing to do with increasing the power of the people to prevent a powerful government from taking away their freedoms. But maybe Mr. Stevens really anticipates his suggestion going mainstream, and supposes that by leaving the form of the original in place, 2nd Amendment supporters will be unable to effectively oppose the change?

To a European, used to being able to walk down the street without being threatened by guns...

Baaa. Baaa. Get a clue. You are not free from being threatened by guns. Any terrorist or criminal willing to break the law can acquire a gun and threaten you with it. What you are free from is the opportunity for self defense in broadly equal terms, or being helped by other lawful citizens on the scene.

Here are six amendments (not in any form of airtight legalese) that would be useful:

1: Campaign donations are forbidden. Each candidate for an elected office will get an equivalent place to state their platform. Advertising anything election related on a commercial (paid) basis will be a crime.

2: Similar to Article 9 of the Mexican Constitution: Only US citizens can influence the politics of the nation.

3: A "no confidence" vote can be done on Congress, forcing a complete re-election with no incumbents allowed in for the next term (but can run after that.)

4: Same as Article 23 of the Mexican Constitution. No double jeopardy, and after three trials, the defendant is now absolved of charges.

5: Same as Article 10 of the German Constitution, guaranteeing privacy.

6: The right to a firearm is guaranteed. However, part of school education is firearms training, from elementary school to high school. The purpose of this is to "un-Hollywoodize" firearms, and make them perceived as a tool (similar to a chainsaw or weed whacker), and no more. If packing becomes pedestrian or gauche, the gun control problem will go away by itself.

These are not perfect, but they will go a ways to address critical issues.

This is mostly beautiful. I have reservations on #6. I'm ok with taking guns away from violent criminals. I don't think educating everyone is going to change the culture of idiots who walk around with a gun in their pants now waiting to shoot someone for "disrespecting" them or being in the wrong neighborhood. Giving them a gun course isn't going to un-Hollywoodize firearms.

the intention was a check of power: that the people would rise up and fight a corrupt government and take it back.

what this assclown wants is even MORE power to the government.

I say we reverse this. arm every citizen and actually make it ILLEGAL for the government to ever rise up against its own people. like that pussy at davis, the 'seargent pepper-spray' asshole, he should have been locked up for the rest of his life for abusing his authority against actual peaceful citizens who were simply exercising their RIGHT to protest the government.

we have a system where the police (in various forms) exist only to keep the powerful in power. anything left over after that is just a token to throw to the masses to keep them in check.

I'd like to see revolts against any government org that uses lethal force against its own people.

of course, it won't ever happen. we have lost our ability to keep our government afraid of us, the people. we lost. I wonder if we forever lost that?

The good part of this that I see is that he is advocating changing the constitution and not just ignoring it. The constitution can and should be amended to account for changing values, changing technology and different external influences. Once you start ignoring the constitution, then what rules do the government need to follow? Change the constitution to what it "should" say, then we all know what we're doing, what's expected of us, and where to go next.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia constitution, June 1776. Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950)

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." Thomas Jefferson, quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in "On Crimes and Punishment", 1764, pp 87-88.

"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." Samuel Adams, During the Massachusetts U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788

"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at the individual discretion, in private self-defense." John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787-88

"I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." George Mason, during Virginia's ratification convention, June 4, 1788 (From J. Elliott, Debates in the General State Conventions 425 (3rd ed. 1937).

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of people, trained in arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country." James Madison, I Annuals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789)

That was almost word for word the phrasing of the 2nd Amendment, which makes our 4th President essentially the author of said amendment. But he also had this further to say in "The Federalist", in which he DEFINES what it means:

"The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." James Madison, The Federalist No. 46

That last one was straight from the author of the amendment himself....

The United States would be in a lot better shape if people protected privacy, protected the freedom to assemble/protest, and fought campaign funding abuse ( Citizens United, etc ) the way the NRA fights for guns. It would be a lot more secure in freedoms as well as its physical safety.

I'd say the mere fact that this ex-justice feels the need to add words to the Second Amendment to specifically alter and limit its context says to me he knows full well what the Founders intended. Now one can certainly debate whether the Second Amendment is still useful or desirable or however you want to frame it, but whatever side of the gun debate you sit on, to pretend that the Founders meant anything other than general gun ownership is revisionism of the most extreme kind.

And to pretend that the Founders never intended the Constitution to be amended is silly since we have an amendment process. Why would they do that? I'll tell you why. They weren't stupid enough to think that the way the Constitution was written in that time and place would suffice over the centuries. They were building a nation to endure over time, not some brain-dead, still-born corpse of nation that would immediately start rotting. Their examples were the extant countries they saw in Europe.

It is only revisionism if one claims unilateral victory and wants to shut down the other side. Even at the time there was debate and disagreement about the scope and specifics of the various Bill of Rights amendments. One of the big reasons they were not included in the constitution is there was so much debate over the topics among the delegates that they feared it would derail the drafting.

"The Founders" meant a lot of things, and their intent varied from person to person, and they disagreed with each

to pretend that the Founders meant anything other than general gun ownership is revisionism of the most extreme kind.

Absolutely. I think his misinterpretation (I won't get into whether or not I think its intentional) can be summed up in just a couple quotes from the article:

(and duty) to keep and bear arms when serving in a state militia.

First, here (emphasis mine). He has the 2nd amendment backwards. He is claiming a militia is a required piece of the Amendment. It isn't. A well-regulated militia is the goal of the amendment, and it accomplishes that by making sure the People, who would compose the militia should it be needed, have the weapons and experience using them.

But that (my) definition isn't even on his radar:

Constitutional provisions that curtail the legislative power to govern in this area unquestionably do more harm than good.

Granted he is talking specifically about Sandyhook styled shootings, but to say "unquestionably"? I question it. I think Sandyhook is an acceptable risk when it comes to gun ownership. Additionally, removing guns in this day & age is just wiping somebody's nose and claiming you cured their flu. McVeigh & Nichols filled a truck with gasoline and fertilizer. 9/11 used box-cutters & a plane. Technology improvements don't only make cell phones cheaper & more useful than the pony express, it also means explosives and other weapons (3-d printers anybody?) are cheaper & more useful than bows & arrows. So if you want to actually stop mass killings, then go after mass killings. Fund mental health research & treatment, balance wealth inequality, accept that public assistance is required in a world where technology is raising the education bar higher than most people can reach and that when public assistance is as laughable as it is today... the have-nots are going to be restless.

Incidentally, I think the 1939 Miller decision is wrong. Whether or not guns have some other lawful use is entirely irrelevant to the 2nd Amendment. Tanks, APCs, and F-16s even are relevant to a militia in today's technological world. Especially if you consider some of the original arguments behind the 2nd amendment: tyrannical governments abusing the people with the military, so you "outlaw" a standing army and rely on The People forming a militia for self-defense until a regular army can be formed. Requiring "some other lawful purpose" is putting an additional restriction, or infringement, on the right to own guns and preventing a militia from behind formed. And since it is easy enough to simply declare there is no other lawful purpose for any gun (Police fill the defense role, beef industry fills the hunting role, so, done), such logic invalidates the entire amendment. (Specifically to sawed-off shotguns, there is a place for them with today's style of house-to-house close-quarters fighting where unskilled shooters need to hit whatever baddy is directly in front of them without penetrating walls or the people behind them; there is even more of a reason as better guns are outlawed/restricted/demonized, thus severely limiting people's chances of learning to hit the broad side of a barn).

Continuing

Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands.

Whereas I say no, they remind you that you're begging the question by simply assuming the debate has already moved on to "how to get guns out of the hands of mass-killers". Like I said above, people owning guns is not the problem. Revolutions don't happen just because people have guns. Mass killings don't happen just because people hav

I'm not certain that's supported by the text of the actual document. The point of the constitution is to set limits on the government's behaviors, one of those being 'everyone is the same under the law'.

"Can have guns" is the same under the law.

Nothing in the constitution undermines the concept of the wealthy buying their way out of problems, and in fact the original document heavily favored landowners.

the point of the constitution is to address issues in fairness. Doesn't deal with everything, but it's the core basic point of the document.

The constitution has nothing to do with "fairness" it is about limitations on the federal government and the absolute rights of the people. The founding of the US was not about fairness but freedom. What we have today is the idea of fairness and that is why our society is messed up and why we alow our government to rape us with high taxes and expect the government to fullfill all our needs.

In Australia, gun deaths dropped, and overall violent crime also dropped. You're cherry-picking a brief increase right after guns were regulated, which was then followed by a sustained decline in both gun deaths and violent crime in Australia.

It's absurd to pretend that "the only thing standing between a crazy gunman and an elementary school is a piece of paper" - laws are enforced. If nobody (other than the police) at a school can have a gun, then anyone with a gun is obviously breaking the law and can be stopped. If people with guns can roam the school, the only way to tell that one of them is a killer is that they've just shot someone.

The shooting in the movie theatre illustrated how ineffective people with guns (there were several in the audience) actually are in stopping gunmen, which is to say that they didn't do so. The reality is that a gunman can position themselves, and have body armor, and then then shoot everyone in sight. And that generally speaking civilians without training for combat situations cause a lot more harm than help, because they tend to panic and shoot the wrong people, or fire and miss, etc. There's a reason that policemen and soldiers train constantly, and it's because it's the critical difference that makes them effective.

Also, most gun deaths are suicides. More guns strongly correlates to more successful suicides. Limiting access to guns reduces suicides.

Similarly, letting soldiers on bases carry loaded guns leads to more people getting shot, not fewer. That's why soldiers are only issued ammunition when they need it. I'm pretty sure that the Army isn't anti-gun, but they do like to keep our soldiers alive.

A crazed man with a gun can kill tens of people. Crazed men with a books and many followers with many weapons have killed millions.

FTFY
Find some example of mass murder without weapons, or any pattern showing the massive numbers achieved with firearms would be attainable without, then you'll have a relevant point. I find the notion that words are as dangerous as weapons quite silly, any fanatic, driven by another mans words or not, could do far more damage with a gun than without.

So where the first amendment is an absolute prohibition "no laws", the second amendment uses an arguably gentler "shall not be infringed".

So, "shall not be infringed" is weaker than "Congress shall make no laws"?

Sounds like you'd have no problems with New York State (or New York City) requiring any news article to be approved by government censors, eh? After all, neither New York City's government nor New York State's government is "Congress", therefore they're not constrained by the First Amendment, right?

Personally, I find the phrase "shall not be infringed" to be stronger than "Congress shall make no laws", especially given the number of groups besides Congress that make laws in this country (every city, county, state government, as examples).

Not at all, given nuclear weapons were one of the examples given in the post he's replying to. It's just following the same logic, if you say they didn't intend to limit what guns we should have you should understand how far that logic goes. Nobody really believes that, so it's important for people to realize it's not a question of whether or not we have gun control laws, it's what we want to accomplish with them. Now, if you're really hung up about the nuke, swap it with a hand grenade. If you're going to say, "That's not a gun!" then go ahead a re-read the second amendment, it's the right to bear arms, a category both the nuke and hand grenade definitely fall under. Once you debate the intent of that statement, you're not interpreting it literally, instead you're narrowing the definition and throwing the main argument against gun control out the window. Nobody really believes in a literal interpretation of the second amendment, they just say they do when it suits them.

You really have no idea. Go find a Mosin Nagant, an ancient Russian military rifle capable of hitting a target at over 200 yards with a high-power round for about $100.

As a matter of fact, I own one of those. And they're accurate a damn sight farther than two hundred yards.

As is my SMLE (a British Service Rifle, which cost me about $100). Note that the most annoying thing about the SMLE is that they used rimmed rounds, unlike everyone else in creation, who switched to rimless...

Other than unsubstantiated allegations, there is no evidence for that. Some children made statements about abuse, but later retracted those statements and said they were pressured into making them. The FBI and ATF were caught lying about almost every aspect of the standoff, so they have zero credibility.

the branch dividians purposely didn't pay the tax on their weapons in order to instigate a standoff with the Feds. if you pay the proper tax, you can legally own any of the weapons they were killed over.

the FBI/ATF did not have to step in and stop it anymore then they have to enforce any other failure to pay taxes.

the Man wanted blood and the dividians gave them an excuse. just remember, all those people died because they didn't pay the tax. money == freedom and in this case life.

If they were "just enforcing the law", then why did the FBI/ATF enter with masks on and no visible identification? That's what terrorists do, not government or police agencies. There is evidence that the federal agents fired the first shots as well.

Pretty much everything the FBI accused the Branch Dividians of, they were not able to actually produce evidence of.
No illegal automatic weapons

No kiddy diddling (the entire reason for the raid).
The charges that were actually upheld in court related solely to firing on federal officials. Whether or not they were justified is another can of worms.

Which is a scary thought since the lesson of the Nevada event is that if you have good PR and enough armed people, officials who do not want bloodshed will back down and allow you to continue. Since this is only a tool that can be utilized by the wealthy and well connected, even if it was just, it does not actually help average citizens but does mean that it is less likely the state will actually protect them from other citizens.

I guess Waco and such did accomplish their goals. They wanted blood to mak

Which is a scary thought since the lesson of the Nevada event is that if you have good PR and enough armed people, officials who do not want bloodshed will back down and allow you to continue.

Really? Because if the government wanted the tax money bad enough (which IIRC the rancher paid to the state of Nevada instead), they could have simply put a lien against the rancher's property and taken it quietly, instead of forming a wall of heavily-armed paramilitary intimidation.

It doesn't help that the senior senator from Nevada (Harry Reid) is egging things on and swaggering the whole time about how the feds will crush anyone that gets in the way.

But look at Nevada, a 1,000 man militia. Probably the first time a battalion size militia has been active in the U.S.

Terrifying. Unaccountable quasi-military organizations that tend to be high on ideology and low on reason. What happens if they were to try and pull the same shit to enforce their own rules (like they effectively did here) beyond just allowing a freeloader to not pay for grazing rights? These guys scream about "liberty" all the time but, down the line, they're either anarchist or authoritarian.

But one can also argue the Feds enacted unethical policies and mis-used laws, in an abusive way.

Hardly. Managing land to keep it from being destroyed like it was during the Dust Bowl is important and costs money. Otherwise we end up with a Tragedy of the Commons and the land is left in ruins, grazed down to barren earth.

The point of the Second Amendment is for those times when what is legal (or what is illegal) is WRONG!!!!!

Or you think it's wrong but your rationalizations are arbitrary and capricious, and somehow you use that to justify murdering people (or at least threatening to.)

"Terrifying. Unaccountable quasi-military organizations that tend to be high on ideology and low on reason."

I'm confused, are we talking about Nevada or the NSA & TSA?

"just allowing a freeloader to not pay for grazing rights?"

Please note this was not about freeloader grazing, this was about the Feds demanding he shrink his herds (and all other ranchers their herds) by 90% so that precious water would not be used for agricultural reasons and more can be diverted to urban California residents (larger voter pool).

Go read....you'll learn that if this was just about the $1/head of cattle, there would be no issue. But it wasn't. And if you think it was, you need to STFU because you haven't read enough of this to even have two bits worth of awareness about what is going on.

"Managing land to keep it from being destroyed like it was during the Dust Bowl is important and costs money."

That is NOT what they're doing. In fact, ruminant grazers are important for preventing the dustbowl type scenarios.

"but your rationalizations are arbitrary and capricious"

My rationalizations are far less arbitrary and capricious than.gov

"somehow you use that to justify murdering people (or at least threatening to.)"

No, you seem to have things reversed. I'm arguing for people's rights to defend themselves against arbitrary and capricious government thugs who are threatening to murder people.

Terrifying. Unaccountable quasi-military organizations that tend to be high on ideology and low on reason. What happens if they were to try and pull the same shit to enforce their own rules (like they effectively did here) beyond just allowing a freeloader to not pay for grazing rights?

They've been peaceful the whole time, and did nothing more than provide a presence and protest. The only difference between them and Occupy $location is the presence of firearms - none of which were brandished by the protesters, let alone used in a threatening manner.

Honest question: Are you terrified because they don't share your ideology, or what?

Managing land to keep it from being destroyed like it was during the Dust Bowl is important and costs money.

The Dust Bowl was caused by a trifecta of over-farming, monoculture (wheat), and a massive drought - not grazing. It was also caused by activities performed primarily on private land, so the comparison is invalid on two fronts. Methinks you're reaching too much for hyperbole to support an otherwise somewhat valid point. Also, why does the federal government have to supply this management, instead of by the state whose borders encompass the land in question?

In the seminal free speech case of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the Court declared, "Although the Sedition Act was never tested in this Court, the attack upon its validity has carried the day in the court of history." 376 U.S. 254, 276 (1964). In a concurring opinion in Watts v. United States, which involved an alleged threat against Presid

Regardless, the Declaration of Independence not only affirms one's right, but admonishes one's duty to do so. No it is not law.

Rather it is the one document higher than the Constitution, the document that affirms that none of these rights are provided by laws. And that one always has the right to replace the government or constitution when it fails to work.

If I told you that in order to file your next W2 you had to sign a form. That form stated that from henceforth, you can only earn 10% of what you are currently earning. You refuse to sign, cause that's ridiculous.

Then I claim the reason we're arresting you is because you failed to pay taxes. BS. You failed to basically be put out of business.

And please realize this has NOTHING to do with tortoises, just like California Central Valley issue had nothing to do with a tiny fish. This is ALL about water for urban Californian cities. That is why the Federal government used an environmental law to shutdown ranching in a huge portion of Nevada. In order to reduce the water usage so more was available to California.

Lets remove the tortoises for the equation. This man has been using public lands to graze his cattle subsidized off our dime for 20 years. The price the BLM charges is way cheaper then it would be if he had to pay private owners/companies to let him graze..

Next they were not arresting him from what I saw, they were removing his cows from PUBLIC land, where they had a lawful court order to remove them, yet he and his "friends" blocked and threatened those officers with violence.

If this had been almost any other group the conservatives would have been calling them all sorts of names like welfare queens, lazy, whatever.

I keep seeing news clips from sources like MSNBC who are apparently on a mission to frame Bundy in that light (thief, welfare mooch, etc. etc.).

If you look at it a little further though, I don't think it's quite that clear....

First off, the entire argument centers around his letting his cattle roam and graze on the grass on all of the otherwise unused land that the Feds are NOW putting up a fuss about. Do animals not roam and graze on land in nature anyway? This isn't a case of Bundy building physical structures on govt. land, or even so much as parking vehicles on it. The government's main defense here is a claim that he owes them a large amount of money for unpaid "grazing rights". Ok... except if you look at the history of grazing rights? All they were was a way for ranchers to avoid having to deal with the hassles of maintaining grazing lands themselves -- repairing broken fences and so forth. A govt. agency offered to make things easier on them by performing those services centrally and collecting grazing fees to fund it, and they agreed. Bundy was actually doing the fence repairs and maintenance himself... so his failure to pay these fees is little more than a technicality.

Additionally, I think many folks supported him primarily as a way to "poke a proverbial stick in the eye of big government", as opposed to a direct interest in seeing justice done for Bundy and his family/relatives/friends. As a taxpayer myself, I have a big problem with government buying up large tracts of land and then just sitting on them, as they clearly did here. That's a huge waste of our money! Government's purpose is to serve the public -- so any land it purchases should be clearly towards that end. In this case, Bundy's ancestors had cattle grazing on the same land for over 100 years... and it didn't bother anybody. Only *now* is it such a big deal, govt. felt the need to use helicopters, vans with SWAT teams and more, to basically invade the area and put on a show of force -- even attempting to seize the man's cattle.

Lastly, there's the issue of govt. clearly lying about its intentions. A claim was initially made about the land being purchased for the purpose of preserving an endangered species of tortoise. Interestingly enough, there are records showing the boundaries of the protected land were re-drawn in the past, to accommodate other government projects - when they were found inconvenient. So the idea Bundy has to go for endangering these animals now is ludicrous.

Bottom line? If the guy owes the IRS back taxes and keeps refusing to pay, fine... Collect it from him the usual way. Seize his bank account or garnish some of his income. If the govt. *really* wants to FINALLY do something constructive with the land they sat on for over a century? Again, fine... but do it in a sensible way. Inform people of exactly what's going on (not LYING about it), and if it's something like a solar project? Why not just build it there and leave the cattle alone? I don't see why they couldn't co-exist and keep everyone happy.

Most of the land was originally the feds in the first place and only leased to others. And before then the land belonged to the natives who lived in the area before the white man came and decided they wanted it instead. At no point in the long history of southern Nevada was there ever a divinely granted right to this farmer or his ancestors to own or occupy the land.

Saihung is overly harsh, to my mind there's no reason why people should not be able to own a gun or a knife or a sharp stick or use it when they need to defend themselves or others or to hunt reasonably or just for the fun of shooting at targets. There are however plenty of reasons why we should not allow people to threaten others with impunity. The gun crowd simply behave in an overly entitled way whether it involves shooting kids at a gas station, scoffing at grazing laws then crowing over the responsible

Yes and the second Australia did, violent crime statistics went up. There are numerous stories of self defense cases gone right. Chicago just allowed conceal and carry licenses within the last year and a half, in that year and a half the murder rate has dropped to the lowest point since 1957 and has continued to drop. And if you want to decrease accidental death in this country, lobby for changes in Automobile penalties. That's still the number 1 killer in this country. But you'll never do that simply because it will impact YOU. You lobby for this because you are not a gun owner and do not understand the choice, so you decide that since we are nothing like you we must be unhinged and dangerous and our rights should be impinged.

I live in the mid-west I can tell you now that although I don't own a gun, most of the people I know do own a gun or three and it has nothing to do with how big their reproductive organs are they are hunters. Most of them have gun safes if they don't then they have gun locks, and they don't keep them for self defense. If you are being robbed by the time you get a shotgun out of the safe and load it you would have been better off going for a kitchen knife or baseball bat if you have one handy.

Speaking as someone who doesn't own a gun, I think the second amendment is fine just they way it is.

It has been made into a privilege. Licenses, permits, background checks, waiting periods, paperwork fees of up to $ 500 or more (hello, New York), "letters of necessity", medical examinations... There are plenty of restrictions.

strict Constitutionalists in the U.S. believe the Constitution brooks no amending, somehow it was born of immaculate conception and henceforth shall remain ever as is until fossilized.

No. Strict Constitutionalists don't have any problem with amending the Constitution by the Constitutionally established processes. They do, however, have a problem with ignoring the Constitution.

It always amuses me when people who raged against depriving one class of people of their rights (see Proposition 8), are so eager to deprive another class of people of their rights. And please -- resist the temptation to go off on an off-topic rant about human rights. I voted against Prop 8.

This is why I want a new constitution dictating that all bills must have a mission defined in English, Latin, and Ancient Greek. The law must be consistent with the Mission; anything outside the Mission--anything not consistent in all three versions--is invalid. The Mission specifies goal (why the law exists) and scope (what the law will do to achieve the goal), while the text of the law specifies method (how the law will achieve the goal). If you start throwing in irrelevant earmarks, altering other criminal laws, or adding taxes where the Mission doesn't cover those activities, those parts of the law are legally invalid. If you arrest someone for violating the law and it can be shown in court that their actions are disconnected from the Mission, then the law was not made to police them in this scenario and they have committed no crime.

We can't even decide what the second amendment actually says. We need stronger definitions with multi-way consistency checking. Use two dead languages for parity.

All of this is irrelevant. We should not be sacrificing freedoms for safety in this way. Collective punishment (punishing everyone because of some people who abuse some freedom or privilege) is disgusting and should only ever be considered in cases where mass destruction (i.e. nukes or other powerful bombs) are possible in each individual abuse, which eliminates the possibility of banning normal guns. We're supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, not the land of the unfree and the home of the coward. But then again, we allow the TSA, the NSA surveillance, free speech zones, stop-and-frisk, copyright, patents, unjust wars, unchecked border searches, constitution-free zones, anti-gun laws, mass government surveillance of public places, no-fly lists, anti-privacy policies, etc. to exist, so I doubt we were ever "the land of the free and the home of the brave" to begin with.

Murderers often have goals other than just causing the most death possible. Also, guns generally require less knowledge to use effectively than bombs and are more readily available in a working form. Most people who use firearms for murder have low counts.

whereas deaths from suicide by firearm alone account for a staggering amount of deaths (not all of which can be attributed to wanting to die unless firearm ownership somehow causes the desire to die to increase).

Your opinion is so wrong, it's not funny. America is not about the masses sitting at the feet of a former Supreme Court justice to learn how to interpret the Constitution. It has been the expectation for all of our country's existence that all of us will be educated in our civil liberties and have a good understanding of them. Something as basic as the 2nd Amendment is ABSOLUTELY NOT above our heads. So get out of here, doofus, because you're making me mad.

Not necessarily relevant, not necessarily true. He knows a crapload more about his agenda. But nothing necessitates knowledge to equate to proper use. In fact, I'd wager he is well aware of the real evident meaning and intention. Hence he wants it changed....

The real scholars have, and every time, those who go by simply a historical basis conclude without a doubt that the intention was personal arms.

I keep telling people it's alpha-quality garbage that needs a rewrite. The goal was good, but we messed up implementation. Pilot has taught us that people are fucking bastards and we need to try this again. The problem is the other side wants to gut it and rewrite it without our "freedoms" or whatever, and so nobody on this side wants to gut it and rewrite it to KEEP THE BALANCE OF POWER.

This is the same view the ACLU has, and it's why they don't dive into 2nd Amendment cases because it's basically a radical view in today's US of A.

FTFY. Actually, most of the world does not find restricting gun ownership to be in the least bit radical in today's world. The rest of us outside of the Middle East, Africa and small parts of Asia and South America accept that our own governments do not have it in for us.

Except, you know, that whole protection by trial by jury that they get. Your words have limited power to do that, and get a chance to face scrutiny before taking effect.

A gun lets you instantly deprive someone of basic and fundamental rights. You may face consequences for using it inappropriately, but I assert as an absolute position deterrence is insufficient to prevent abuse.

Enact this, and as a former serviceman who swore an oath, I am obligated to stop you at all costs.

An oath that you obviously do not understand. The oath (and I took a similar one) declares that you will support and defend the Constitution, which includes all the articles *and* amendments. If this were to be enacted, it would be done as an amendment, thereby becoming part of the Constitution. Your oath would obligate you to support and defend that amendment as any other. You don't get to pick and choose based on your personal ideologies because doing so makes the oath meaningless. If you like the idea, then fine; work to make it happen. If you don't like the idea, then fine; work to stop it. But leave the solemn oath out of it.